As is well known, a digital image can be stored as a digital image file on a digital storage device, such as a hard drive, floppy disk, memory card, CD, or the like. A high quality digital image is comprised of many pixels (i.e., a high resolution image), and therefore, when stored on a digital storage device, the digital image file can be quite large and take significant amounts of time to process. Accordingly, it is common to provide a reduced resolution image. This reduced resolution image is commonly referred to as a “thumbnail” or a “thumbnail image”. Often, the thumbnail is created as part of the image acquisition process (for example, using a digital camera) or in close timing thereto. Further, the thumbnail is typically stored in a reserved area associated with each image file. If stored in this manner, the thumbnail image follows the high resolution image wherever the image file travels. The thumbnail image can be easily and quickly accessed, thereby allowing fast review and display of the thumbnail image. This low-resolution “thumbnail” size image can be created as described in commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,164,831 (Kuchta), the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference.
Because the thumbnail is of a reduced resolution, the image quality can be unacceptable for viewing purposes. Accordingly, a need exists for a method to determine when a thumbnail is of sufficient resolution to be acceptable for viewing by a user.